AN: This is the last chance to give me input on which House the characters should be in. Again, I have written a choice out, but it doesn't feel exactly right and I would welcome your help. Please. And I don't want to disappoint everybody with the choice. You don't have to write a review if you want to give me input, you can just PM me or whatever you want to do. I will post a list of all the students in Harry, Hermione, and Neville's year after the chapter with the sorting.

You know how stories kind of develop sentience and then start running off and doing crazy things when you're least expecting it? Well, Dean Thomas wasn't supposed to be in this chapter at all, but then he sort of just popped up and started talking.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter universe. But that doesn't mean you can copy this story and claim you wrote it.

And without further ado, the fanfiction itself:

Hermione wasn't quite sure why she was leaving Hogwarts to go to Platform 9 ¾, but she had heard Dumbledore say something about "Ah, the value of friendship." She was suffering from extreme nausea because a manipulative old wizard with way too much power thought that she should make friends.

"Would you like me to remain here, Miss Granger, or would you prefer to wait on your own?" Dumbledore asked. Hermione nearly shuddered at having to wait on the platform for another half an hour with only Dumbledore for company – especially because Dumbledore would attempt to talk to her instead of just letting her read.

"I would prefer to wait alone." Hermione said stiffly.

"Very well," said Professor Dumbledore sadly, "I suppose you would like company your own age. Take care of yourself, and stay away from untrustworthy people." He Apparated away. For a brief moment, Hermione considered running, but when she thought about it, she knew she would just get caught. From her books, she had learned that the Ministry could detect accidental magic, and Hermione didn't have control over her powers yet. She wouldn't have control until she got some actual schooling. And besides, if Dumbledore found out that she ran and she didn't get to her parents in time, they would be Oblivated.

So instead, Hermione just attempted to climb onto the train. Attempted being the key word, of course, because her luggage was quite heavy. "I think the stuff's supposed to go over here," a boy with dark skin and curly black hair told her, pointing to a part of the train where "'Cause I met this other boy whose dad was using magic to lift his luggage over there! It was amazing! Are you a Muggleborn too?"

Hermione considered telling him that no, she wasn't. Perhaps she could hide that she was a Muggleborn. But then again, it would be too easy to check with magic. The only Granger she could find was Hector Dagworth-Granger, and there were no Wizarding Puckles.

"Yes," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger, who are you?"

"Dean Thomas," the boy said, pausing before shaking her hand. "Sorry to be rude, but I have to check with all the weird rules around here…"

"Yes?" Hermione prompted.

"Wizardsarebigonformalstuffsoshakingyourhanddoesn'tmeanI'mmarryingyou,right?" Dean said, all in one breath.

"What?"

"Wizards are so formal," Dean explained, "so I have to make sure that shaking your hand doesn't mean I'm marrying you or something."

Hermione frowned. "I haven't heard of anything like that. Not shaking someone's hand is a grave insult, but I think you just shake someone's hand when you meet them."

"Thanks," Dean said, finally shaking her hand. "I'm sorry."

"It makes sense that you'd check," Hermione reassured him. "Did you know that wizards have betrothal contracts?"

"They do? Wow," Dean said, astonished. He and Hermione loaded their luggage into the luggage compartment, only taking their carry-on bags. It was a lot easier to climb onto the train without their luggage. "I wonder why they don't just have us take them on, y'know? It's hard for us, but not for older kids."

"Perhaps they check the luggage for dark artifacts and stuff like that," Hermione suggested.

"Makes sense."

There was a long pause.

"Would you…would you like to share a train compartment with me?" Hermione asked shyly, before immediately realizing that there was no way a normal boy would want to sit anywhere near a know-it-all, especially a female one.

Instead, Dean just said "Sure!" before climbing onto the train. A lot of compartments had people in them, but they managed to find somewhere empty to sit down.

"I'm a first year here." Dean explained. "You're one too, right? Since you didn't know about the luggage compartment?"

"Yes."

"This place is amazing, right? I mean, I never knew about magic before, and then suddenly Professor McGonagall comes to my house to tell me that I can do crazy things! I didn't believe her at first, but then she told me all about Hogwarts and showed me books and everything! Professor McGonagall made my football player picture move! It's stopped now, but she's really cool. She's head of Gryffindor, I think, just like Headmaster Dumbledore once was! I think I'm gonna be in Gryffindor, what about you?"

Hermione was about to tell him about how horrible Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were, but decided against it. That probably didn't count as best behavior. "I don't like the Wizarding World much," she said carefully, "since it seems like there's a lot of prejudice and bigotry. Like in the Muggle world, except even worse. Not that the Muggle world's good about that either. And they said I have to come until I get my OWLS. So I'm going to work hard so that I can catch up, since everyone probably knows more magic than us, and I'll study Muggle subjects on the side. Then after fifth year I'll go back."

"That must be a lot of work," Dean said. "So you're gonna be a Ravenclaw?"

"I'm not certain." Hermione explained. "Slytherin seemed perfect – I use cunning, and I pride myself on being resourceful. And I want to be a scientist – certainly ambitious. But then I read that they're super obsessed with blood purity. I have trouble making friends, so I'm not a good Hufflepuff, and I don't think I'm brave enough to be a Gryffindor. I want to run away from the Wizarding World when I take my OWLS, not fix it. Though I will do all I can to make things better while I'm here."

"Well, we can still be friends when you're in Ravenclaw and I'm in Gryffindor." Dean offered. "I mean, it's not like we won't have classes together, right?"

"I suppose so." Hermione answered, while she was thinking: Friends? We're suddenly friends after a few minutes? Well, I guess that's just how boys are. I've never made a friend before, so I wouldn't know, would I? It's never this quick in books, though… "We're friends?"

"Sure! I mean, if you want to be."

"O…kay? We can be friends." Hermione said. It felt like she was five again, just asking the kid that she was building a block tower with if he wanted to be friends. And then he said no, because she was weird, and the blocks flew everywhere and she was so, so embarrassed, because it was her fault, even if she didn't know how, and – Okay, calm down.

"Thanks!" Dean said happily. "At least that's one person who won't be mean."

"Get out," A voice said obnoxiously, as if Dean had jinxed them. Hermione and Dean looked up. A boy with an arrogant expression, blonde hair, and fancy clothing stepped into the compartment. Behind him were a hulking minion who didn't look like he was eleven, a pretty girl with perfect blonde hair and sparkly blue eyes, a boy with dark hair and eyes who stayed in the shadows, and a rather tall girl with brown hair and a face that looked like she was disgusted. "This is our compartment."

"Who even are you?" Asked Dean. "And we were here first."

"For your information, I am Draco Malfoy, Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy, one of the purest purebloods in all of Britain. And you are nobody – idiotic Halfbloods or Mudblood scum." He said with a sneer. Hermione wasn't quite sure what a Mudblood was, but it sounded like an insult. And this boy sounded like a bully.

"Leave us alone!" Dean said loudly. "I don't care about your noblest ancientest blood or your weird made-up words! Get out of here!" Then, "what's a Mudblood?" he whispered to Hermione.

"Some sort of insult." She whispered back, except her whisper was a bit too loud.

Malfoy's face contorted into an even sneerier sneer, if that was possible. "That's what you are – a Mudblood. Your kind don't belong here." Hermione resisted the urge to respond. No matter what, they were the type of people who knew dark curses and she had been warned to watch out for. And there were more of them – five versus two was hardly a fair fight, especially when one of the five looked like a professional child minion.

Hermione stole a glance at Dean, who looked like he was about to punch somebody. "How about we just go and leave you alone – there are plenty of compartments elsewhere." Hermione stepped towards the door, but the enemies – yes, right now these were the enemies – were blocking it. "Please move out of the way," she said calmly.

"I'm going to –" Hermione elbowed Dean. "What?"

"Shut up!" Hermione hissed. Malfoy and the other enemies were watching this exchange with a seemingly-bored expression that hid a calculating look. They might already be preparing to fight, and Dean. Still. Hadn't. Realized.

"I don't think so." Malfoy said, leaning against the compartment wall with his arms crossed. "You see, no one is allowed to insult the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy." Hermione's eyes darted around nervously. This was going to turn into a fight, and she only knew a few spells. She had difficulty learning without a demonstration, just like the books had said she would, and the most difficult ones for her had been the offensive spells. "Crabbe, Nott?" The dark-eyed boy stepped out of the shadows along with the minion boy, and both advanced menacingly.

"We don't need to fight," Hermione said anxiously, still thinking. "Dean and I'll just leave, okay? Sorry to insult you, I just didn't know you're so important."

"You," Malfoy said, "are not worthy to even apologize to us. I think Crabbe and Nott here will have to teach you a lesson."

We're eleven! Hermione thought. Eleven-year-olds don't beat people up, right? Right? And boys don't want to hurt girls, right? I can use that, maybe. "Look, you wouldn't hurt a girl, right? This society is all about being polite. You can't just attack people who are smaller than you."

Malfoy laughed. "Don't lie to me, Mudblood. Your kind aren't even human." Finally, Hermione got an idea. An idea that she specifically remembered observing as she read her first year Charms textbook but hadn't thought of because she was so frightened.

"Close your eyes." Hermione whispered to Dean.

"What?!" Dean asked, panicking.

"Just do it!" Hermione yelled as the dark-eyed boy got closer to her with his wand raised and a red spell on the tip of it, flickering, being forced out…

"Lumos!" Hermione cried, pushing all of her power into the spell, coaxing every last bit of energy forward, thrusting the magic out of her wand, and

LET THERE BE LIGHT!

Everything was bright. Nobody could see for the brightness, the white, the pure magic filling the small compartment and spilling over…

Nott's spell went wide, and the purebloods stumbled, blinded. Hermione froze, so Dean grabbed her arm and pulled her through the crowd of students and into the main train. "Split up!" He said urgently. Hermione finally came to her senses and bolted towards the back of the train while Dean hurried to the front.

Soon, Hermione had to stop to catch her breath, her mind whirling. She opened a compartment door near her. Inside were several girls wearing blue-trimmed robes, giggling. "Do you mind if I sit here?" Hermione asked, barely able to speak.

"Su –," an Asian girl began to say, but one of her friends interrupted her.

"Blood status?" A girl with reddish-blonde hair asked.

"Well, I'm a Muggleborn," Hermione said hesitantly.

"Marietta!" The Asian girl scolded.

"I'm not sitting with a Mud – with a Muggleborn, Cho!" The friend insisted.

The girl who was named Cho turned towards Hermione. "I'm sorry. Nothing against you, but Marietta's my friend, and…" Cho told her apologetically.

"It's fine, I'll be leaving." Hermione stepped out only to see Malfoy and his gang interrogating students in a nearby compartment. She ducked into the bathrooms and peeked around the corner, eavesdropping.

Malfoy stepped into the compartment that Hermione had been in moments before. "Draco Malfoy, Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy." He held out his hand. Marietta shook it and Cho grasped it for a second. The other two Ravenclaw girls shook his hand too, but both looked rather annoyed.

"Marietta Edgecombe."

"Cho Chang."

"Tamora Belby."

"Ella Stimpson."

"Have any of you seen two Mudbloods passing this way? A black boy wearing muggle clothing and a bushy-haired beaver girl?"

"Nope." Tamora Belby said. The others shook their heads, but Cho Chang looked disgusted.

"Draco, we should be getting back to our compartment." The tall pureblood girl said quietly. "They must've gone the other way – we'll get them at school."

Malfoy frowned. "Very well, Alicia. Good day, ladies." Marietta Edgecombe giggled as the purebloods left, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. About a minute later, she left the bathrooms and walked a few compartments over into one with two boys that didn't have colors on their robes yet.

"My name is Hermione Granger," she said, holding out her hand. "I am a Muggleborn. My parents are dentists. And I like books. If you have a problem with that, tell me now."

There was a pause, and then one of the boys stood up to shake her hand. He had brown hair and brown eyes, carried a toad, and seemed rather nervous. "I'm Neville Longbottom, Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom. We're a light House, though – we don't care about nonsense like blood purity. I don't know what a dentist is, but if they don't kill people then that's fine with me."

Hermione smiled slightly. She was finally safe. She could barely believe that she had been in danger by a bunch of bigoted eleven-year-olds. Hermione wouldn't let that happen again. "Dentists…are like Healers, except they specialize in fixing people's teeth."

"Cool." The other boy said. He had bright green eyes and messy black hair. Somehow, he looked both tired and excited at the same time. "I'm Harry Potter."

"Pleasure," Hermione said, taking his hand carefully – it was rather dirty. "May I sit here?"

"Sure," Neville said. "You were late for the train?"

"No," she answered, sitting down. "I got here half an hour early and met another kid but…these other kids wanted the compartment we were sitting in."

"Were they older kids?" Harry asked.

"No…they were first years. But five of them, and it was only me and this boy sitting there. They were purebloods – no offense, Neville – and they realized that we were Muggleborns quickly." Hermione explained cautiously.

"Was it Malfoy and his gang?" Neville asked sympathetically. Hermione nodded. "They're as dark as you get. Him, Nott, Crabbe…were Runcorn and Greengrass there too?"

"I don't know. There was Malfoy. He kept calling us a rude name, it was obviously an insult, but I'm not quite sure what it means, I think my books didn't want to write it. I mean, their authors didn't. Books can't write, of course," Hermione said, getting flustered. Talking to people always did this to her, which was why books were loads better. "And there was this kid who was standing in the shadows – he had black hair and eyes that were nearly black. Then this giant guy who looked like your typical henchman but didn't have colors on his robes, and two girls – one had brown hair and was quite tall and the other had blonde hair and sparkly blue eyes. She looked like she spends hours each day trying to get it perfect."

"What did he call you?" Harry asked. He looked incredibly serious now.

"Not important." Harry was looking frightening, and Hermione felt kind of embarrassed that she was so upset over a bit of name calling. That was all Malfoy had done, really. Of course, he had ordered Crabbe and Nott to attack her and Dean, but that hadn't even worked. And the things about her and Dean she had overheard him say to the Ravenclaw girls – well, it wasn't like she hadn't heard them already at Muggle school. "Was that them?"

"Yeah, that's them." Neville explained. "Theodore Nott was the one with dark hair and Vincent Crabbe was the minion one." He laughed quickly. "Daphne Greengrass has the blonde hair, my gran made me meet her this summer. And the one with the brown hair is Alicia Runcorn." Hermione nodded. "They're all very important in Wizarding society."

"What did he call you, Hermione?" Harry asked.

"It's not important."

"He used the m-word, didn't he? Er, 'Mudblood'? Sorry for saying it," Neville said cautiously.

"Yes." Hermione admitted. "But whatever it means, it's not really important. I have more important things to worry about than what gits like him think of me." Both were true. The thing that Hermione was leaving out was that she did care. Even knowing that she shouldn't let bullies get to her didn't stop her from feeling hurt when people were mean.

"I'm going to –" Harry said, his green eyes flashing with rage.

"Harry, calm down!" Neville said quickly. Harry took a deep breath and sat down.

"I'm sorry. My mother was a Muggleborn, you know," Harry told Hermione and Neville. "And I've met Malfoy before – his father is a Deatheater."

"Just because someone has Deatheater parents doesn't mean they'll end up as one," Neville said. "Right now Malfoy's a git, but that doesn't mean he's going to kill and…and torture Muggleborns."

"He's a complete bully," Harry said, "and you know he's going to end up as one. It's only a matter of time."

"I just don't think it's fair to bring his father or his last name is into this. Malfoy is a prejudiced git and deserves to be expelled from Hogwarts. We wouldn't have to deal with him if Karkaroff hadn't run – he would've gone to Durmstrang."

"If Malfoy's father is a Deatheater, how come Mr. Malfoy's not in jail?" Hermione asked cautiously. "Azkaban, right?"

"He said he was under the Imperious curse and that he hadn't done all of those things. It's nonsense," Harry said.

"What's that?"

"It's an Unforgivable – there're three of them," Harry explained looking incredibly upset. "The Killing Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Imperious Curse. You go to Azkaban for life if you use any. The Imperious Curse is like mind control – they can make you do whatever you want. They can make you betray your family and allies, murder innocent people, commit suicide – anything. Malfoy Senior said that he was under that spell when he was a Deatheater, that he had control. Everybody knows that you can't be forced to take the Dark Mark, but he has money. Lot's of it, for bribes. And connections."

Hermione was listening with a growing expression of horror on her face. "They can control your mind?" She shrieked. "I read in a book that there was mind reading, but that it was incredibly rare, and it refused to say any more. But I never thought that there was a spell that could just – just – I don't even know how to describe that!"

"If you're strong-willed enough, you can fight it," Neville said quietly. "Not many people can, but some are able to. And mind reading is called Legilimency – it's considered quite dark and is forbidden to those who don't have a license. You can defend against it with –"

"Occlumency," Hermione interrupted. "I know that. It's just…that's…they have spells that can wipe your memory too. And if they can read your mind, and then make you do something, and then wipe your memory of it…how do you know that anything is real, that your secrets aren't out in the open, that you haven't committed terrible crimes that you've forgotten! How do you know the difference between your own thought and what someone else wanted you to think? How can you trust anything you think of?"

I bet Dumbledore uses Legilimency,Hermione thought. I bet that's what Voldemort did too, to make sure everybody's in control, and people don't do anything! They don't realize what can be done to them, so they go on being ignorant! Or, she realized, it's not their fault – someone else placed that thought inside their head, and –

Calm down!

"This stuff isn't easy," Neville said. "It's super difficult and you'd probably realize if this was being done to you."

"But we can research it," Harry suggested. "I hear Hogwarts has a giant library."

"It does!" Hermione said, her thoughts instantly leaping to the distraction. "I read in Hogwarts: A History that…"